CHAPTER VII.

Lord Nevil's health improved, yet cruel anxiety still agitated his heart. He constantly sought tidings of Corinne; but everywhere heard the same report: how different from the strain in which _her_ name had once been breathed! Could the man who had destroyed her peace and fame forgive himself? Travellers drawing near Bologna are attracted by two very high towers; the one, however, leans so obliquely as to create a sensation of alarm; vainly is it said to have been built so, and to have lasted thus for centuries; its aspect is irresistibly oppressive. Bologna boasts a great number of highly-informed men; but the common people are disagreeable. Lucy listened for the melodious Italian, of which she had been told; but the Bolognese dialect painfully disappointed her. Nothing more harsh can exist in the north. They arrived at the height of the Carnival, and heard, both day and night, cries of joy that sounded like those of rage. A population like that of the Lazzaroni, eat and sleep beneath the numerous arcades that border the streets: during winter, they carry a little fire in an earthen vessel. In cold weather, no nightly music is heard in Italy: it is replaced in Bologna by a clamor truly alarming to foreigners. The manners of the populace are much more gross in some few southern states than can be found elsewhere. In-door life perfects social order: the heat that permits people to live thus in public engenders many savage habits.[1] Lord and Lady Nevil could not walk forth without being assailed by beggars, the scourge of Italy. As they passed the prisons, whose barred windows look upon the streets, the captives demanded alms with immoderate laughter. "It is not thus," said Lucy, "that our people show themselves the fellow-citizens of their betters. O, Oswald! can such a country please you?"--"Heaven forbid," he replied, "that I should ever forget my own! but when you have passed the Apennines you will hear the Tuscans--meet intellectual and animated beings, who, I hope, will render you less severe."

Italians, indeed must be judged according to circumstances. Sometimes the evil that has been spoken of them seems but true; at others, most unjust. All that has previously been described of their governments and religion proves that much may be asserted against them generally, yet that many private virtues are to be found amongst them. The individuals chance throws on the acquaintance of our travellers decide their notions of the whole race; such judgment, of course, can find no basis in the public spirit of the country. Oswald and Lucy visited the collections of pictures that enrich Bologna. Among them was Domenichino's Sibyl; before which Nevil unconsciously lingered so long, that his wife at last dared ask him, if this beauty said more to his heart than Correggio's Madonna had done. He understood, and was amazed at so significant an appeal: after gazing on her for some time, he replied, "The Sibyl utters oracles no more: her beauty, like her genius, is gone; but the angelic features I admired in Correggio have lost none of their charms; and the unhappy wretch who so much wronged the one will never betray the other." He left the place, to conceal his agitation.

[1] It was announced at Bologna that a solar eclipse would take place one day at two. The people flocked to see it; and, impatient at its delay, called on it to begin, as if it were an actor, who kept them waiting. At last it commenced; but, as the cloudy weather prevented its producing any great effect, they set up the most violent _hissings_, angry that the spectacle fell so far short of their expectations.